# Rhodes Will Not Fall **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 29, 2016, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhodes-will-not-fall/744559 "2016-01-29T07:46:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![T.M](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ad7895/32.png) [@T.M](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/T.M)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2016, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhodes-will-not-fall/744559/101 "2016-02-01T11:40:47Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > I’ve read that, much like the Confederate Flag, that one who displays such garb is a racist asshole without exception. Who are we to disagree with the politically correct who would like to purge from existence any thing that is incongruent with their exact point of view? The symbol goes back hundreds of years before Hitler the reverse swastika is a Buddhist symbol the swastika used by the Nasties was taken from the Hindu’s and is supposed to be a symbol of good fortune. Google origins of swastika ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2016, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhodes-will-not-fall/744559/102 "2016-02-01T12:31:28Z")
> [@Larry\_Borgia](#): > > I haven’t been to a lefty demonstration in a long time. Are there really large groups of people waving hammer and sickle banners? You’d think the demo organizers would ask them to cut it out. That’s terrible optics. I was just in Kerala for a few days last month and they have Che Guevara / hammer and sickle iconography _everywhere_. Of course most of that is put up by the actual _communist party_, so it’s what you would expect. Che iconography is also very popular in Latin America, and a lot of countries (notably, Russia, but many others) have large and influential Communist Parties which still use the hammer and sickle. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2016, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhodes-will-not-fall/744559/103 "2016-02-01T12:45:36Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Of course, some of us feel the same way about Mao hats and Che Guevera T-shirts. Both were murderous thugs who helped support a political system that killed more people in the last century than any other in history, but the same young radicals who are trying to erase the history of Rhodes and others still wear them. The hammer and sickle is just as obnoxious as the swastika, and both are worse than the confederate flag, but the left still attends marches where the hammer and sickle is flown. > > So if we’re going to start erasing symbols from the past, let’s not forget those, hmm? Or are we only erasing the bad things associated with the ‘other’ side? Maybe we’re only a few un-persons away from true enlightenment. > > On another topic, if you really hate Rhodes, then you don’t get to pick-and-choose which parts of his legacy you’re going to keep. Advocate for ending the Rhodes scholarship, too. It’s easy to eliminate a statue. It’s a lot harder to advocate for eliminating something that might actually benefit you and people like you. But if you’re going to become a moralizing scold, at least have the consistency of thought to do so even when it’s painful to you and not just to others. The obvious difference here is that people who use Communist iconography or Che Guevara pictures do so because we don’t think communism in general was a bad thing or that Che Guevara was a bad guy. Sorry to disappoint you, but there are people in the world who don’t share your value system. On another note, do you have any names of any individuals that were ‘murdered’ by the ‘murderous thug’ Che Guevara? Jon Lee Anderson tried to find examples when writing his biography (and again, Anderson is not a hard leftist- just look at his more recent writings about Venezuela if you don’t believe me, he’s extremely anti-Chavez), of Guevara executing anyone who was very plausibly innocent, and had this to say: "I have yet to find a single credible source pointing to a case where Che executed ‘an innocent’. Those persons executed by Guevara or on his orders were condemned for the usual crimes punishable by death at times of war or in its aftermath: desertion, treason or crimes such as rape, torture or murder….Che studied the evidence in each case with methodical care. The executed were all torturers and murderers of women and children. I should add that my research spanned five years, and included anti-Castro Cubans among the Cuban-American exile community in Miami and elsewhere.” Yes, the post-1959 trials were hasty and probably not up to perfect procedure, but then that’s the case in most societies immediately after a war (look at France in 1945, for example), and plenty of trials in the US have procedural flaws too. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2016, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhodes-will-not-fall/744559/104 "2016-02-01T14:09:55Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > Oriel College is a Grade 1 listed building. No melting it down for scrap is not easy, its protected. > > [Grade I listed buildings in Oxford - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_I_listed_buildings_in_Oxford) > [Listed building - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listed_building) > > You cannot change anything at all about a listed buildings appearance without getting special permission. “Special permission” just means petititoning the local planning authority. In a case like this there is no reason to believe the authority will refuse permission. ---
**Author:** ![T.M](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ad7895/32.png) [@T.M](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/T.M)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2016, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhodes-will-not-fall/744559/105 "2016-02-01T16:38:03Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > “Special permission” just means petititoning the local planning authority. In a case like this there is no reason to believe the authority will refuse permission. Not in the U.K. Hell will freeze over before they even think about considering the case and then they will say no, there is also the cost involved ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2016, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhodes-will-not-fall/744559/106 "2016-02-01T16:44:07Z")
There is no fee for a listed building consent application. And Oxfordshire County Council has never declined a listed building consent request by an Oxford college, as far as I can tell. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2016, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhodes-will-not-fall/744559/107 "2016-02-01T17:01:58Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > Oriel College is a Grade 1 listed building. No melting it down for scrap is not easy, its protected. > > [Grade I listed buildings in Oxford - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_I_listed_buildings_in_Oxford) > [Listed building - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listed_building) > > You cannot change anything at all about a listed buildings appearance without getting special permission. Ah, so it’s the college itself that’s listed, not the statue. Makes sense. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > My kid’s social studies class had a giant poster of Che Guevera on the wall, and his teacher spoke of him very approvingly. My university had Che posters and Mao posters as well. Communist iconography is still very popular among certain elements of the left. If it were my child, I’d find that unacceptable. YMMV. > [@Sam Stone](#): > > The idiotic thing about this retroactive whitewashing of history is that it takes the people out of the context of their time and judges them by the standards of certain groups today. A lot of historical people can look very bad that way - even ones who benefited humanity as a whole. But the real danger is that because the filter is not applied equally, and is often wielded by people with a particular axe to grind or a particular point of view, it runs the risk of distorting history. This is actually the opposite of whitewashing history. Putting up a statue to Rhodes and treating him like a great hero is the whitewash. Considering _all_ the facts of history is revisionism, not whitewashing. > [@Sam Stone](#): > > Was Rhodes a horrible man compared to his contemporaries? I don’t know much about him. Is there more reason to hate him than any other British colonialist of the time? Or do we plan to just pretend that colonialism never happened? No one is proposing pretending that colonialism never happened. Instead, they are proposing that we stop honoring the colonialists, especially at a college with students from all over the world. > [@Sam Stone](#): > > Wouldn’t it be better to leave the statue up, but use it as a way to educate people? In theory. What’s your proposal, exactly? > [@Sam Stone](#): > > And isn’t it better as a student of Oxford to understand that there are nuances, and that sometimes people who do terrible things in some areas may actually have done good things in others? Wouldn’t it be better to teach people to understand historical context and how growing up in a different era can lead to ways of thought even among good people that we would find horrible today? After all, the ‘progressives’ of the first half of the 20th century favored lobotomies, eugenics, Malthusian inspired forced sterilization, and other things that even modern progressives find abhorrent. Were they worse people? Or did we just learn better? Maybe we should scrub Margaret Sanger from history, if one evil belief means even images of the person can no longer be tolerated. That’s what history class is for. The statue isn’t part of any instruction, to my knowledge. It’s merely a statue honoring Rhodes. To return to my earlier example: would you fault the East Germans who removed statues of Communist leaders in the same way? Why or why not? > [@Sam Stone](#): > > On the other hand, it’s a lot easier to stamp your feet and demand that somebody remove everything you find offensive from your sight, because justice. Temper tantrums are always easier than hard reflection and nuance. Hard reflection and nuance can lead one to the belief that the statue should be removed. Try some of that reflection and nuance yourself, instead of tarring those who disagree as children throwing a tantrum. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2016, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhodes-will-not-fall/744559/108 "2016-02-01T17:59:51Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > In theory. What’s your proposal, exactly? My proposal earlier in the thread was to put an educational sign underneath the statue explaining why he’s a controversial figure. You can even embed a QR code / URL at the bottom of the sign going to complete essays on the subject that anyone can access with their phone. or perhaps place a statue underneath him that expresses something of the atrocities of African colonialism. Lots of ways it can be turned into something educational without removing the statue. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2016, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhodes-will-not-fall/744559/109 "2016-02-01T18:33:05Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > The obvious difference here is that people who use Communist iconography or Che Guevara pictures do so because we don’t think communism in general was a bad thing or that Che Guevara was a bad guy. Sorry to disappoint you, but there are people in the world who don’t share your value system. To their unending discredit and shame. Communism killed more people in the 20th century than Fascism or any other ideology, and Che Guevera was a murderous revolutionary for the cause of enslaving millions of people. > [@](#): > > On another note, do you have any names of any individuals that were ‘murdered’ by the ‘murderous thug’ Che Guevara? No, because most of them were powerless peasants and unknowns. The fact of the matter is that Che personally shot people, and enjoyed doing it. There are many accounts of this in the historical record. He ordered many more shot for being ‘enemies of the revolution’. As you say, often summarily without any due process, and for crimes like opposing the Communist revolution or ‘treason’ (i.e. not playing ball with the Communists). Have you forgotten that Che was the head of Castro’s secret police after the revolution? One of his first acts was to establish the first Soviet-style Gulag in Cuba, and many dissidents and undesirables were sentenced to hard labor in the prison camps he established. And Che was no troubled humanitarian conflicted over the harsh measures required. He LOVED it. He enjoyed killing people who opposed the revolution. He thought hatred was a wonderful thing when directed at enemies of the revolution. > [@](#): > > Jon Lee Anderson tried to find examples when writing his biography (and again, Anderson is not a hard leftist- just look at his more recent writings about Venezuela if you don’t believe me, he’s extremely anti-Chavez), of Guevara executing anyone who was very plausibly innocent, and had this to say: > > "I have yet to find a single credible source pointing to a case where Che executed ‘an innocent’. Those persons executed by Guevara or on his orders were condemned for the usual crimes punishable by death at times of war or in its aftermath: desertion, treason or crimes such as rape, torture or murder….Che studied the evidence in each case with methodical care. The executed were all torturers and murderers of women and children. I should add that my research spanned five years, and included anti-Castro Cubans among the Cuban-American exile community in Miami and elsewhere.” Anderson wrote his book while living in Cuba, and with the approval of the Cuban government. Many of his sources were people inside the Castro regime or family of Guevera. I wouldn’t go so far as to call the book a hagiography, but I also wouldn’t consider it the last word on Guevera. Not while so many other people who were actually there are still alive and strongly disagree with much of what’s in the book. > [@](#): > > Yes, the post-1959 trials were hasty and probably not up to perfect procedure, but then that’s the case in most societies immediately after a war (look at France in 1945, for example), and plenty of trials in the US have procedural flaws too. You’re seriously trying to equate the procedural flaws in American jurispudence with a totalitarian state that executed or sentenced to hard labor thousands of people whose only crimes were that they were dissidents? Unbelievable. Immediately after the revolution, La Cabaña and Santa Clara prisons were used to try and execute enemies of the state under the direct orders and personal attention of Che Guevera. Eyewitnesses said that he personally executed many of them with a pistol shot to the head. That goes a little beyond ‘procedural flaws’. If you want to know what kind of person Guevera was, how about his own words? Here are some choice quotes from him: > [@Che Guevera](#): > > “A revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate.” > > “We will bring the war to the imperialist enemies’ very home, to his places of work and recreation. We must never give him a minute of peace or tranquility. This is a total war to the death.” > > “If the nuclear missiles had remained, we would have used them against the very heart of America, including New York City…We will march the path of victory even if it costs millions of atomic victims…We must keep our hatred alive and fan it to paroxysm.” His terror training camps were used to export terror and revolution to Central and South America, and trained such wonderful people as Carlos the Jackal. Anyone who thinks Che is a hero is either ignorant or a fellow revolutionary who thinks it’s okay to kill, torture, or imprison a lot of people for the cause. Because that’s what Che believed, and that’s what he did. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2016, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhodes-will-not-fall/744559/110 "2016-02-01T18:45:11Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > My proposal earlier in the thread was to put an educational sign underneath the statue explaining why he’s a controversial figure. You can even embed a QR code / URL at the bottom of the sign going to complete essays on the subject that anyone can access with their phone. > > or perhaps place a statue underneath him that expresses something of the atrocities of African colonialism. Lots of ways it can be turned into something educational without removing the statue. That’s a reasonable compromise, if done properly. Anything that re-contextualizes the statue would be, whether the statue is physically moved or not. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2016, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhodes-will-not-fall/744559/111 "2016-02-01T19:37:21Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Yes, unless there’s a statue of limitations. (b’DOOM _kssh_) You… _shakes fist_ > [@DrCube](#): > > I don’t have a problem with moving it, to be honest. I thought this was about destroying it. My mistake. Putting it in a museum would be okay. I get more frustrated by calls to sandblast Stone Mountain. You can’t put that in a museum. You could build a museum around it, I suppose, like Monk’s Mound. > > I have a problem destroying art for political reasons. Period. Should we level Monk’s Mound because the Cahokians practiced human sacrifice? Obviously if it isn’t of significant importance and the owner is okay with it, I imagine I’d be okay with a lot of art being destroyed. For example, there’s a fundraising event here called Art Attack, where they auction off art and whatever doesn’t sell gets chainsawed to pieces. For charity. That’s cool. > > But not for political reasons, and not when it isn’t yours. And especially not when it is “history”, which I would consider a hundred year old statue to be. It represents a mindset that for good reason doesn’t exist anymore. Let’s learn from history, not close our eyes and pretend it didn’t happen. Let’s be fair, keeping a controversial statue up is also a political move. So the question again is why should a statue, or any work of art, have the right to exist simply because its up? With really old historical monuments, like Monk’s Mound, the people who lived there are pretty much gone. There is little, if any, living people to be offended by it, victims included. Thus its not a continual blight to the people who are alive, being reminded that their ancestors were tortured and sacrificed on top of it. It becomes a historical footnote, an oddity where modern people can marvel at with detached curiosity. On the other hand, with things like confederate statues, there are many people still fighting that war now, only the war is being fought among the hearts and minds of its descendants, who trivialize their brutality and lionize their accomplishments. Because its relevant now, the continued upkeep of such a monument projects a message that affects people right now. I cannot see a statue of Robert E. Lee and think that’s a time in America where things happened but is a footnote now. Not with actual elected officials praising them, marginalizing minorities, taking away food stamps, and pretending that “states rights” stood for anything other than the right of states to own slaves. This is a current issue that’s being fought in the here and now, so damn right I want those statues destroyed for political reasons. ---
**Author:** ![T.M](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ad7895/32.png) [@T.M](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/T.M)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhodes-will-not-fall/744559/112 "2016-02-02T00:50:57Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > There is no fee for a listed building consent application. And Oxfordshire County Council has never declined a listed building consent request by an Oxford college, as far as I can tell. You would have to apply to get the statue unlisted ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhodes-will-not-fall/744559/113 "2016-02-02T01:43:26Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > To their unending discredit and shame. Communism killed more people in the 20th century than Fascism or any other ideology, and Che Guevera was a murderous revolutionary for the cause of enslaving millions of people. > > No, because most of them were powerless peasants and unknowns. The fact of the matter is that Che personally shot people, and enjoyed doing it. There are many accounts of this in the historical record. He ordered many more shot for being ‘enemies of the revolution’. As you say, often summarily without any due process, and for crimes like opposing the Communist revolution or ‘treason’ (i.e. not playing ball with the Communists). > > Have you forgotten that Che was the head of Castro’s secret police after the revolution? One of his first acts was to establish the first Soviet-style Gulag in Cuba, and many dissidents and undesirables were sentenced to hard labor in the prison camps he established. > > And Che was no troubled humanitarian conflicted over the harsh measures required. He LOVED it. He enjoyed killing people who opposed the revolution. He thought hatred was a wonderful thing when directed at enemies of the revolution. > > Anderson wrote his book while living in Cuba, and with the approval of the Cuban government. Many of his sources were people inside the Castro regime or family of Guevera. I wouldn’t go so far as to call the book a hagiography, but I also wouldn’t consider it the last word on Guevera. Not while so many other people who were actually there are still alive and strongly disagree with much of what’s in the book. > > You’re seriously trying to equate the procedural flaws in American jurispudence with a totalitarian state that executed or sentenced to hard labor thousands of people whose only crimes were that they were dissidents? Unbelievable. Immediately after the revolution, La Cabaña and Santa Clara prisons were used to try and execute enemies of the state under the direct orders and personal attention of Che Guevera. Eyewitnesses said that he personally executed many of them with a pistol shot to the head. That goes a little beyond ‘procedural flaws’. > > If you want to know what kind of person Guevera was, how about his own words? Here are some choice quotes from him: > > His terror training camps were used to export terror and revolution to Central and South America, and trained such wonderful people as Carlos the Jackal. > > Anyone who thinks Che is a hero is either ignorant or a fellow revolutionary who thinks it’s okay to kill, torture, or imprison a lot of people for the cause. Because that’s what Che believed, and that’s what he did. Communism and its symbolism will always get a pass from academia because it’s a far left ideology. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhodes-will-not-fall/744559/114 "2016-02-02T01:45:36Z")
> [@YogSothoth](#): > > You… _shakes fist_ > > Let’s be fair, keeping a controversial statue up is also a political move. So the question again is why should a statue, or any work of art, have the right to exist simply because its up? > > With really old historical monuments, like Monk’s Mound, the people who lived there are pretty much gone. There is little, if any, living people to be offended by it, victims included. Thus its not a continual blight to the people who are alive, being reminded that their ancestors were tortured and sacrificed on top of it. It becomes a historical footnote, an oddity where modern people can marvel at with detached curiosity. > > On the other hand, with things like confederate statues, there are many people still fighting that war now, only the war is being fought among the hearts and minds of its descendants, who trivialize their brutality and lionize their accomplishments. Because its relevant now, the continued upkeep of such a monument projects a message that affects people right now. I cannot see a statue of Robert E. Lee and think that’s a time in America where things happened but is a footnote now. Not with actual elected officials praising them, marginalizing minorities, taking away food stamps, and pretending that “states rights” stood for anything other than the right of states to own slaves. This is a current issue that’s being fought in the here and now, so damn right I want those statues destroyed for political reasons. 50 or so shot in Chicago during January. What statutes should we tear down or flags remove to stop inspiring these murderers? ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhodes-will-not-fall/744559/115 "2016-02-02T08:02:39Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > 50 or so shot in Chicago during January. What statutes should we tear down or flags remove to stop inspiring these murderers? I don’t know…is there a Sculpture Of Limitations? ---
**Author:** ![Malden\_Capell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malden_capell/32/5274_2.png) [@Malden\_Capell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malden_Capell)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhodes-will-not-fall/744559/116 "2016-02-02T09:03:49Z")
What other statues in London should we tear down while we’re at it? Churchill was a great colonialist, after all. And so was Disraeli. And Victoria? Worst of the lot. We’ll have a lot of empty plinths. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhodes-will-not-fall/744559/117 "2016-02-02T10:12:28Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > I fail to see how. It is certainly a statement of categorisation and one which can occasionally be a little fuzzy. Not in this case of course. Both the statue and the building it stands on are examples of art and architecture. I’m pretty sure no-one would disagree. Nope, no disagreement > [@](#): > > That I admit something is a work of art does not mean I’m making a judgement on the merit of that art. But you are making a judgement on the merit of art vs not-art. So, for instance, if the Rhodes statue was, instead, a [mass-produced plastic Rhodes head](https://img1.etsystatic.com/068/0/10837115/il_570xN.778385023_18g4.jpg), you’d be fine with that being destroyed? That’s the attitude I’m trying to unpack. > [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > yep, I refer you to my previous message. I think they are dreadful but to purposefully destroy them or deface them would be wrong. Even though they’re mass-produced artefacts created in a factory setting? > [@](#): > > Another reason is, this is a listed historical building with the associated historical baggage and artifacts both good and bad. We want to keep it whole as it tells a story. It shows where we’ve come from. I’m against unfettered heritage protectionism, as well, BTW - I think the case must be made for each instance of protectionism, rather than the other way around being the default. > [@](#): > > I’m with those who say it should be kept and plaques included and updated to reflect the history as we now perceive it. That is what should happen with all historical architecture and artwork anyhow. Then we will eventually drown in a sea of meritless historic artefacts (with attached plaques!), unable to create anything new of our own, because there will be no space to do so (and no bronze to do it with). ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhodes-will-not-fall/744559/118 "2016-02-02T10:56:43Z")
> [@Malden\_Capell](#): > > What other statues in London should we tear down while we’re at it? Churchill was a great colonialist, after all. And so was Disraeli. And Victoria? Worst of the lot. > > We’ll have a lot of empty plinths. Churchill, it’s fair to say, has a fairly large sum on the credit side of the ledger what with the defeating of the Nazis and all. Disraeli had a fair few domestic and non-colonial achievements as PM and in government. Victoria was Head of State and they get statues by default. What achievements of Rhodes stand alongside Disraeli’s, let alone Churchill? The only reason he got a statue is because he was extremely rich, and the only reason he was extremely rich is because he was good at shooting Africans and taking their land. There is literally nothing else to the man except racism and theft. Even \*Cromwell \*has a better claim to a statue than that and he was a military dictator who seized power from Parliament at swordpoint. And, to reiterate, Rhodes views and actions were \*not \*unexceptional or run-of-the-mill by the standards of the time. He was recognised, criticised and condemned \*at the time \*as an extremist in his views on race, humanity and property rights, and for the means by which he put those views into practice. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhodes-will-not-fall/744559/119 "2016-02-02T11:03:08Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > the only reason he was extremely rich is because he was good at shooting Africans and taking their land. Now, now, be fair… …he was _also_ good at shooting Boers and taking the land _they’d_ taken from Africans. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2016, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhodes-will-not-fall/744559/120 "2016-02-02T11:51:06Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Now, now, be fair… > > …he was _also_ good at shooting Boers and taking the land _they’d_ taken from Africans. I would like to take this opportunity to apologise wholeheartedly for my erroneous remarks. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhodes-will-not-fall/744559.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rhodes-will-not-fall/744559.md?page=7)